Concealed carry repeal passes NC House committee. Critics say it will cause more gun deaths.

An effort by gun-rights activists to repeal North Carolina’s concealed carry rules moved forward in the legislature Tuesday, narrowly winning approval in a state House of Representatives committee.

Several bills with similar proposals for allowing nearly any adult to carry a concealed firearm without a permit were filed this year. One of them, Senate Bill 50, has passed the Senate and is now working its way through the state House.

Republicans on the House committee that approved SB50 Tuesday offered no explanation for why they supported the bill before taking the vote to approve it. Democrats, however, offered long lists of reasons for their opposition.

In addition to repealing the training rules and background checks currently required to get a concealed carry permit, the law would also lower the age for carrying a concealed pistol from 21 to 18.

Democratic Reps. Ya Liu and Laura Budd each referenced their own teenage boys when questioning the wisdom of allowing high schoolers to carry concealed weapons at all, let alone without first having to prove they know how to safely handle a gun. "There's a huge difference between age 18 and age 21," Liu said. "I mean, 18 year olds, they're not mature enough. They are highly emotional."

Currently, the permit process requires applicants to pass a background check by their local sheriff, pay an $80 fee and pass tests proving they can shoot relatively accurately and understand the relevant laws on gun possession and self-defense.

Republican politicians say those rules are too restrictive and need to be repealed. They say if more people are armed, the state would be safer — since police aren’t always immediately on the scene of robberies, mass shootings and other violent crimes.

“Good people with guns stop bad people with guns,” bill sponsor Sen. Danny Britt, R-Robeson, said during a debate earlier this year.

But on Tuesday Rep. Deb Butler, D-New Hanover, said other states that have repealed their own concealed carry laws have seen a rise in gun deaths, and she'd expect the same to happen in North Carolina. On average, she said, those other states saw their homicide rates increase by more than 10%. And in West Virginia, Butler said, all gun deaths — homicides, suicides and accidents — increased nearly 30% after the state repealed its concealed carry law.

Butler added that responsible gun owners know how dangerous guns can be, citing a poll that she said showed two-thirds of all concealed carry permit holders would oppose getting rid of concealed carry rules.

"I don't understand why in the world we would do this," Butler said. "And I think we all have to recognize that we had an example of a mass shooting in Catawba County two days ago, and 11 people's lives and their families' are probably ruined, and here we sit talking about more guns. For the life of me, I don't understand it."

North Carolina is an outlier nationally — one of few Republican-led states that hasn't already gotten rid of concealed carry laws — and GOP politicians here are under increased pressure from gun rights activists to follow suit.

"Right now we have 29 states in the United States that's already passed similar legislation with permitless carry," Ken Stallings of the pro-gun group Grassroots NC told the committee Tuesday. "We look forward to making North Carolina 30."

In the 2024 elections, however, Democrats flipped enough seats to break the GOP's veto-proof supermajority in the state House. So if the bill gets to Gov. Josh Stein's desk and he vetoes it, Republicans would need at least one Democrat to break party ranks and vote to make the repeal law. In an interview Tuesday, Stein said he hadn't read the latest version of the bill but indicated that he would likely oppose it.

"My standard, reviewing any piece of legislation, is 'Will this make us safer?'" Stein said.

The bill would still allow people to get concealed carry permits if they wanted — for example, to help with buying new guns or to be allowed to lawfully carry in another state with reciprocity rules. But a permit would no longer be required in North Carolina if the bill becomes law.

Under the bill, anyone could carry concealed handguns or other firearms as long as they’re 18 or older and don’t fall under the list of exceptions, which includes people with felonies or dishonorable military discharges.

The idea first gained momentum in North Carolina in 2023, but it fizzled out after state Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, signaled his opposition.

But this year Berger, who is facing a 2026 primary challenge backed by critics who say he’s not conservative enough, has signed onto the concealed-carry repeal as a co-sponsor.

Rep. Carson Smith, R-Pender, is a former sheriff who supports the bill

Some law enforcement officers oppose the idea, in part because they fear losing the probable cause they currently have to stop and question people who get reported for carrying guns in public.

Sen. Mujtaba Mohammed, a Charlotte Democrat, thinks the bill, if approved, would lead to more law enforcement deaths. “You're going to kill police officers with this bill,” he said during an earlier debate over SB 50.

Republican lawmakers have said they disagree with that assessment. However, the bill would also raise the death benefit paid to families of officers killed in the line of duty — from $100,000 to $150,000.

Other critics say they don’t like the idea of untrained people, including teenagers, being allowed to carry concealed guns in public. But supporters say that’s already allowed for open-carry, which requires no permit. There shouldn’t be any difference, they say, in how the state treats people who wear a pistol on their hip versus people who hide their pistol in a purse or tucked into a waistband.